


Take A Running Leap

by apanoplyofsong



Series: Work Worth Doing [1]
Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, F/M, Fluff, Mild Language, parks and recreation AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-17
Updated: 2015-09-17
Packaged: 2018-04-21 05:42:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,030
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4817255
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/apanoplyofsong/pseuds/apanoplyofsong
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Clarke Griffin comes to Ark expecting nothing more than a coffer to balance.<br/>Bellamy Blake is determined this won't be at the expensive of his Parks and Recreation department.<br/>The Harvest Festival brings them together. </p><p>Or: the Parks and Rec AU in which Clarke is loosely Ben, Bellamy is loosely Leslie, and their jobs probably don't actually entail working this closely.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Take A Running Leap

**Author's Note:**

> _(This got posted twice, so apologies if that threw you off in any way.)_  
> [Hannah](http://teamquiche.tumblr.com/) wins MVP for this fic. She bounced ideas with me when I started pitching this, encouraged me to write it then and countless times in the process, and generally put up with more messages than she should have had to. Hannah, you are truly a beautiful tropical fish. 
> 
> Apparently I decided to dive straight into these fic writing attempts, jumping from 2500 words to 12k. This is my first time writing anything with this much actual plot, even though most of it's not of my own creation, and it was an interesting/bizarre experience. But hopefully it works.
> 
> Title from Mouse Rat's "5,000 Candles in the Wind," because obviously.  
> (standard disclaimer that all characters belong to their respective shows and are great.)

Bellamy Blake is damn attractive.

His hair falls in black spirals that brush his eyes, his skin dark and freckled in a way that reminds Clarke of the summer she was 16 and fell in love both a girl and the sun, his smile transformative when it graces his face. If they met at a bar, she’d probably try to get his number.

But here, his looks aren’t going to matter. Clarke’s in town for three weeks, and she’s probably going to get him fired.

She's cutting his budget, cutting his department, cutting him if she has to. It’s not like she gets any _pleasure_ out of it. She’s just doing her job.

(And okay, yeah. Maybe she does get a little pleasure out of it sometimes.)

Clarke rolls her shoulders and follows Bellamy and his boss, a man named Marcus Kane, towards the conference room. She takes a seat next to her partner, sparing Wick a small smile, and turns to face the townsmen with a mask of determination.

Ark, Indiana’s Parks and Recreation department isn’t going to know what hit them.

\-----

Fifteen minutes later, Clarke is staring at Bellamy with one eyebrow raised, intrigue and surprise coursing through her veins while her hair bristles and her heat rises. She’s encountered a lot of people during her time in government work, and he’s definitely not the norm. Clarke’s used to _doing_ her job—coming into almost-bankrupt towns and helping them reduce the city budget enough that they can afford to function again—not _convincing_ people that her job is necessary. It’s usually pretty obvious by the time she’s called in.

Apparently, Bellamy’s not convinced, because he’s currently yelling. It would be mildly impressive if its full force wasn’t directed at her.

Wick is no help, of course.

They’ve done enough of these meetings by now to have the technique down: he introduces them as Official State Auditors, Kyle Wick and Clarke Griffin; reassures whoever they’re working with that day with his endless optimism and some metaphor too flowery for Clarke’s tastes that they’re going to do their job as quickly and painlessly as possible; then ducks out while Clarke cuts the budget to pieces. It works for them.

Or, usually it does.

“You’re a jerk! Do you get that? These people out there—my people, my department—they have _lives_ they have to live, lives they have to carry on with some sense of dignity and self-respect! Which they can’t do if you _CUT THEIR FUCKING JOBS_ ,” Bellamy bellows, voice deep and rough, before deflating slightly. His eyes have blown wide and he’s clamped his mouth shut with the realization that cursing at the woman whose role it is to decide his fate might not have been the best part of his reaction.

Something hot has snapped in Clarke’s spine. “Look, it is not my fault that every department needs to shrink almost 50% to keep the town afloat. That’s the fault of the people out there running your government. Not me.” She slams her binders closed and gathers her things as she prepares to stalk out of the room.

“I’ll figure this out without you,” she shoots over her shoulder. She refuses to look back, ignores the fire burning under her skin.

Clarke’s only been in Ark for twenty hours. All she’s seen outside of City Hall are her motel room and the eleven Dropship Burgers between here and there, but she gets the feeling that this town is going to be different.

And not just because of the absurd number of burgers per capita.

\-----

Clarke lies sprawled across her motel bed, pencil skirt and heels long since discarded. Grease and laundry detergent scent the air, the rough texture of the comforter scratches against her palms, and she’s cursing Bellamy Blake’s name.

When she told Wick about the earlier exchange with Bellamy, he’d simply raised an eyebrow, though one corner of his mouth kept tugging upward.

“You know what you have to do, Griffin.”

“Cut his entire department?” Clarke muttered, petulant at what she knew was coming.

Wick looked unimpressed.

“We have to work with Blake and Kane the entire time we’re here. We need them to not be a problem. Fix it.”

Clarke sighs and rolls off the stiff mattress, rooting through her suitcase for a pair of jeans and shoes. It was one of the Parks employees birthday—Lincoln, she thinks they said; the seemingly silent office assistant with a ridiculous physique and tattoos winding down his dark neck, who sat outside Marcus's office and glared at the phone every time it rang. She had been invited to celebrate before the blowout. His party seems as good a time as any to get this over with. 

She could be a mature adult.

When Clarke arrives at the Foxhole Lounge, seemingly the only bar in town open, she waves to a few of the Parks workers who spot her—Murphy and Miller, maybe?, though she’s unsure whether those are first or last names—and makes sure to quickly wish a happy birthday to Lincoln, standing next to a radiant brunette chatting animatedly to a group around them, before turning to find Bellamy. She feels her back straighten and shoulders square, stomach flip slightly. Her body’s bracing itself for whatever shots may be coming.

Clarke spots Bellamy’s unruly hair sticking out of one of the booths and winds her way over, weaving in between people swinging elbows a little too enthusiastically for her comfort. When she emerges, he’s knocking back a drink with a striking Latina Clarke might have gravitated towards under different circumstances and she schools her face into a facsimile of pleasantness.

He's flushed and bright, and for a second Clarke wonders what he’s like outside of the office; if he's always this much lighter or if it's just her and her job here that are dulling him. 

She shakes herself. _Don't get invested, Griffin._

“Clarke Griffin!” Bellamy shouts her name as she reaches the table, slurring a little over the harsh edges of the consonants and swaying as he stands. She’s momentarily concerned about being crushed under a drunken Blake. Instead he turns, waves his arm with a flourish as if impersonating a butler, and carefully announces “Raven Reyes!” while motioning to the woman next to him before plopping gracelessly back down into his seat.

She turns at the introduction and waves, and though the dark eyes surveying her are fierce and suspicious, Raven returns the gesture. Clarke takes a deep breath and focuses her attention back on Bellamy, trying not to be distracted by his flushed cheeks or the way his (obviously glassy) eyes are flickering over her.

“Look, Bellamy, I know we didn’t start out on a great note this morning, but we’re going to have to work with each other while I’m here. So I just thought I would come by and apologi—“

“You can save your breath, Griffin. Why don’t you just get out of here? This is a party with my friends and you’re trying to _fire_ all my friends!”

Clarke is slightly surprised by his reaction, a flash of anger surging quickly under her skin, but the way he trips over every third word and runs sentences into each other leaves her at least as entertained as it does annoyed. She’s slightly curious if he’s going to remember this in the morning, but he just keeps going.

“…you wanna take people out with machetes! Raven is right. I should make my own damn plan so you can’t touch any of my people, so that’s what I’m gonna do.” He punctuates his statement by banging his glass against the table loudly.

By this point Clarke’s standing with her eyebrows raised, fighting both the urge to laugh and to fight back, because as much as her quickening pulse feels intoxicating, she knows it would end with her right back in this same place. She’s not that keen on apologizing.

“Okay. I’ll just see you tomorrow then.” Clarke turns on her heel and strides away. She’s pretty sure she can still hear him muttering loudly behind her, but decides to ignore it. The hottest shower her motel room can provide and a glass of whatever booze she can find on her way back seem like the smartest way to round out the night at this point.

As she’s slipping through the bar’s door she spots Wick standing at the bar, his eyes locked on where Raven sits in the corner booth, looking completely besotted. Clarke just shakes her head and steps outside.

She can deal with everything in the morning.

\-----

“Clarke Griffin!” Wick sounds even more chipper than usual as he strides into their temporary office. He’s _much_ too chipper for Clarke, coffee in hand and only half finished, but she greets him anyway.

“Hey, Wick. What’s got you grinning?”

“Did you meet Raven last night?”

Clarke nods confirmation and he continues.

“Well, she definitely kissed me. I mean, she was drunk so I stopped it and made sure she got home, but still. I figure if she wants to make out with me drunk, there’s gotta be some part of her that wants to make out with me sober, right?”

“Sure, buddy. Let me know how that goes.”

They settle in to work; Clarke reading spreadsheets full of numbers that don’t add up and make her brow furrow, Wick messing with something on one of the seven electronics he has lined across his desk. A rapid trio of knocks on the door pull her attention away just as her neck’s starting to ache and she finds Bellamy, looking bleary-eyed and rumpled, standing in the doorway.

“Bellamy Blake!” Wick is definitely too cheery this morning. And when the hell did she get used to him greeting everyone by their full name? Clarke makes a mental note to call him out on it before he starts adding finger guns.

“Hey, Kyle. I was actually hoping I could speak to Clarke for a minute?”

Wick grins at her and fucking _winks_ before he excuses himself, leaving Clarke alone in the room with Bellamy. She raises an eyebrow at him, uncertain of where this is going to go, but motions for him to join her at the table anyway.

“I need to apologize for yesterday.”

Clarke eyes him warily, but he looks genuine. Chastised, even. His chin is dipped towards his chest, brown eyes peering out at her from under curls, and his hand reaches up to rub at the back of his neck.

“It’s fine. Don’t worry about it.”

“No, Kane pointed out that what I did was out of line. And he’s right; I shouldn’t have yelled at you. Twice. You just represent a threat to my people and that gets me worked up.”

“Your city council and your mayor are the threats to your coworkers, okay? We did nothing to get you into this situation.” She huffs a short breath out through her nose, but feels a glimmer of amusement at the fact that _she had this same fucking conversation yesterday_. Bellamy, however, has pressed his mouth into a thin line that tucks in at the corners, chest heaving as he tries to control his breathing.

“Look, Clarke, I don’t appreciate your callous elitist attitude. This is on you. You may hold my fate in your hands right now, but I can still think you’re an ass.” He practically spits the words at her.

She blinks at him, cocks her head, wonders why she doesn't feel the all-encompassing anger she's sure she should. 

"You wanna get a beer?"

It's his turn to blink. 

"What? It's barely ten in the morning."

"I know," she says, already reaching for her purse. "But you _really_ look like you could use a beer." 

They wind up at some place that bears scuffed dark wood and a sticky countertop (apparently the Foxhole’s not the only bar in town), each nursing a beer and sitting quietly.

“How’s your head?” Clarke finally checks. She didn’t think he was leaving the Foxhole anytime soon when she saw him there, and the bags circling his eyes seem to confirm that suspicion.

“Not great.” He grunts, then draws a deep breath. “I am sorry that I yelled at you. All three times. But I really don’t think you know anything about my department. You can’t be older than, what, 27? Have you ever even been around a government body for longer than a few weeks at a time?”

Clarke smiles tightly into her beer, wondering how much she should say. She hates this part, telling anyone who she is and why she’s here in anything broader than the “Official State Auditor” capacity. She tends to avoid it as often as possible.

She takes a drink before answering him.

“I’m 26. And I grew up around them, actually. My mom was a governor. It’s hard not to see government when that’s the case.”

Bellamy’s staring at her, eyes wide and surveying like she just revealed she grew up in the White House instead of three states over.

“Oh my god, Griffin.” He sounds awed. “As in Abigail Griffin. You’re Abby Griffin’s daughter?!”

“Yep,” Clarke drawls, wondering how the hell she ended up with the one person in this town familiar enough with Minnesota’s electoral history to know who her mother is. She’d left that behind for a reason. She’s embraced the discord that her job often breeds with people in the towns she visits for similar reasons.

She has an inkling her detachment might be failing her here.

“I remember watching you on C-SPAN my first year of college, when your mom was being reelected. What was it they called you? Minnesota’s princess?”

“What kind of college freshman watches C-SPAN is his spare time?” Clarke’s pretty sure she can feel her cheeks turning pink, a slight stab at the old nickname and the time it marks, but she’s somewhat entertained despite herself.

Bellamy just shrugs at her question and continues, voice absent enough that she thinks he’s talking without fully realizing it.

“God, I always thought you were cute, too, up on the platforms behind your mom.”

Now Clarke _knows_ she’s flushed and presses her lips together to keep from grinning, looking down at her bottle. He clears his throat, and when she glances back up his ears are red and he’s gulping from his drink. The glass clinks dully against the bar when he lowers it, fingers fiddling with the label.

Embarrassed Bellamy is sort of endearing.

“I was always kind of jealous of you, you know. Standing up there with your all-American family, waiting to go back to the governor’s mansion or whatever the hell it was. I never had anything like that.”

Clarke eyes him at that, surprising herself at wondering what’s made him into the person he is, but doesn’t pry.

“Yeah, well, you probably shouldn’t have been jealous of me. It kind of fucked up my life. I mean, my mom was in the middle of reelection campaigns when my dad got in a really bad car wreck. She didn’t come to the hospital when she heard; she thought he’d be fine. But he wasn’t.” Clarke takes a swig of her beer, refusing to meet Bellamy’s gaze and letting the slight burn of alcohol draw her back from memories of her father’s death. “I’m here, balancing budgets, in part so I could get away from all that. So that I could see the ways I was helping, the ways people are held accountable, instead of the way politics makes them be.”

She feels his hand slide over hers on the countertop, fingertips squeezing lightly. His skin is warm. When she looks up, she doesn’t see pity in his face. For that, she’s grateful.

“All that’s to say that, yes; I’ve been around government. And I learned that you have to make decisions like these; you have to be harsh sometimes. You have to show them you’re capable of making tough calls.”

Clarke smiles at him, tiny and wry, letting his silence answer her words.

“It’s not easy being in charge, is it?”

\-----

Four hours later, Clarke forces a deep breath as she follows Wick out of the conference room. She’s been dreading this meeting since she came back from lunch with Bellamy, since they figured out how bad Ark’s budget crisis really is.

Outside the door, Bellamy’s waiting with binders tucked under his arm, looking undeniably determined, Marcus and Raven lounging on either side of him. Clarke’s not sure what Raven’s doing here, but she notes Wick stands straighter when he spots her.

“Raven Reyes! It’s great to see you.” Raven smiles tentatively at Wick, her brow furrowed slightly as she looks between him and Clarke, muttering a greeting back. Clarke’s not sure how much Raven drank the night before, but she’s pretty sure she recognizes this confusion from her own past.

“Look, I’ve got meetings the rest of the day, but can I call you?” Wick’s looking foolish and hopeful, rocking back on his heels slightly as he watches Raven.

Raven, in return, raises one sculpted brow and reaches to tighten her ponytail. “You have my number?”

“No, you couldn’t remember your number. But I do have your phone.” Wick grins and reaches into his left pocket, extracting a phone with a hard-shelled case printed in black birds. Bellamy waggles his eyebrows and smirks at Raven, but she just grabs her phone and stalks out of the room.

Clarke tries not to make her smile too tight as she welcomes Bellamy into the office. He passes over binders, and Clarke feels her stomach drop slightly as they begin.

Her chest clenches as she flips carefully through the pages in front of her. It’s a plan, carefully outlined to cut various Parks and Recreation department services and slice the budget by a third. She looks up to find Bellamy watching her, hopeful and confident, and she’s not sure how to tell him it’s all for nothing.

Wick takes care of that for her.

“Look, it’s an impressive proposal, but it’s moot. We underestimated how far under Ark is. Effective tomorrow, we’re placing all government services under an indefinite freeze.”

Bellamy snaps his eyes to Wick, dark and fierce.

“FUCK.”

Clarke attempts not to notice how her heart feels off-kilter when he leaves.

\-----

She’s not sure how she ends up in her car, barreling across town borders on Friday evening in an attempt to save a banned children’s concert instead of tucked up in her bed with a movie, but Clarke knows it has something to do with Bellamy.

When he had been broached as the Parks Department’s most logical employee elimination during Clarke and Wick’s City Hall-wide meeting with directors, she was suddenly watching the normally stoic Marcus Kane _lose his fucking mind_.

“No one else is losing a Bellamy! No one else _has_ a Bellamy! He’s out there, putting on a concert you two cancelled just because he can’t say no to the fucking kids!” Marcus had blanched at his own words and run out of the room, leaving Clarke to trail after him in order to shut the whole endeavor down.

Instead, she’d found Bellamy surrounded by a gaggle of children on the town’s fairgrounds; one kid in his arms, tugging on his curls, as he laughed with another bearing tiger stripe face paint perched in front of him; and she’d had to focus to avoid tripping over her own feet. Her resolve had fractured irreparably when his gaze shuttered at her briefly, then again when he informed her that everything for the concert had been donated and was thus untouchable. The way his face crumbled when Miller informed him the starring act had cancelling for a paying gig in neighboring Woodlawn had been the nail in her coffin.

 _Way to not get involved, Griffin_.

Bobby Salami is sprawled in her passenger seat, guitar tucked into the trunk, and she marvels at just how absurd her life has become since Bellamy came into it. She should be cutting his job, and instead she’s carting a children’s entertainer back towards the fairgrounds (seriously, have none of the parents realized how phallic this guy’s name is?), a check for more than Woodlawn was paying freshly torn from her pocketbook.

When they pull up, Bellamy is on stage, spouting jokes and half thought out rhymes into the microphone, alternating between rubbing furiously at the back of his neck and pushing a hand through his hair. Part of her wants to sit and watch him stutter because it’s amusing to see him crumble a bit, but when he tries to launch into a rendition of “You Are My Sunshine,” she sends Bobby Salami on to cut him off. Bellamy looks relieved enough that she has to laugh, his face turning towards awe when the performer says something in his ear and he catches sight of her waiting in the wings. She just waves as he lopes off the stage.

“I can’t believe you did this.” Bellamy’s standing close by, looking between her and the performance as if he’s still reconciling the information in front of him.

“Well, I want the kids to have their concert.” Clarke shrugs but shoots him a wry smile. “I’m not a monster; just doing my job.”

“So the mean princess has a soft spot, after all.” Bellamy bumps his shoulder into hers, but he’s grinning so she just knocks him back.

“Look, I’m glad we could do this, but there’s going to be a lot of pain ahead, Bellamy. We have to cut at least 32%--”

“Clarke, can you stop it? Just, for one minute. Enjoy that you provided a service for these people instead of a cut. And they love it.”

Clarke looks out over the small crowd gathered in front of the stage, children smiling and clapping as they sing along to some song about sausages (really, does no one else see it?), parents smiling fondly as they look on. Her heart feels a little bigger and it’s nice, really, knowing she could do this. Knowing she played a part. A tiny spot in her chest warms. She looks up at Bellamy and smirks.

“I think the real service was getting you to stop singing.”

They’re laughing and looking out at the festivities, and Clarke recognizes how unusual it is for her to have moments like this in the towns she’s visiting, to have even this tentative sense of comradery, this truce. She senses Bellamy’s demeanor change and when she looks over, he’s grasping a clipboard, eyes narrowed and contemplative.

“You know, this place used to hold _actual fairs_ ,” he says, surveying the grounds.

Clarke makes a noncommittal noise, but he’s already scribbling away furiously and she has a sense this won’t be the last she hears of it.

\-----

Sure enough, three days later, a gangly guy named Jasper fetches her and Wick to the Parks department, tripping over his own feet as he runs the hallway back. When they walk in, she’s finds all of the Parks employees lined up behind a folding table they’ve decked out with fake pumpkins, squash, and foliage. She thinks someone’s holding a cornucopia. It’s with some trepidation that she sits down.

Bellamy steps up and smiles widely at them, and Clarke reminds herself sternly to focus on her job and not his fucking _dimples_. She’s not here for his dimples.

“Historically, Ark was known for two things: its fiery massacres, and the annual Harvest Festival.”

At his words, a banner unfurls behind him, and _where the fuck_ did he get a banner? What follows is an admittedly convincing pitch on bringing back the Harvest Festival—eliminated in budget cuts years ago, and apparently boasting corn mazes and rides and oversized vegetables. At some point Jasper hands Clarke a plastic zucchini.

“With ticket sales and sponsorships, we can more than make the money back. And, we think, make enough to keep the department afloat. People will come,” Bellamy says, solid and sure and convincing. With the way he speaks, Clarke thinks he should probably be in politics. She’d definitely rally behind him.

“And if they don’t?” she hedges anyway. She can see Wick grinning out of the corner of her eye, tossing a miniature pumpkin up into the air repeatedly, and she knows they’re going to say yes. But she wants to at least feel like she _tried_ to do her job.

“Then you cut the Parks Department.” Everyone behind Bellamy nods solemnly, and Clarke exchanges a glance with Wick, shrugging slightly.

“Look,” Bellamy sighs, “we’re all here as a reflection of the community. And we just want to do it some good. We think we can bring people together.”

Clarke observes him, his hands clasped together, back straight and shoulders wide, freckles more obvious across the bridge of his nose under the fluorescent lights. A warrior fighting for his cause. Whatever reservations she was still holding onto crumble.

“Yeah, alright. Wick and I will adjust accordingly.” Clarke places the zucchini she’s still holding onto the table and a collective sigh slips through the room. She hears Bellamy’s voice boom over the cheers a few people release, telling everyone to take fifteen minutes to celebrate before they start to brainstorm.

She turns around before they see her smile.

\-----

Somehow, without meaning to, Clarke finds herself integrated into the Parks and Recreation employees. It’s a tiny department, what should be a low priority on her and Wick’s list, but the Harvest Festival results in her being drawn in. She’d never say so explicitly, but she really, really wants Bellamy’s plan to work, so she bands together with his people to make sure it does.

There's Miller, opinionated and gruff with a beanie pulled over his dark head most days, who she learns has a powerful attachment to his Mercedes on the day everyone has to street-park because of maintenance in City Hall's lot. She finds out Monty is actually a reporter and one of the sweetest people she's ever met, and he seems to hang around Miller's desk for stretches at a time whenever he's in the building. (She also figures out that Miller is, in fact, a last name, but Monty’s the only one she’s heard call him “Nate.”)

Lincoln is short-spoken but kind and completely infatuated with Octavia Blake, who sits with her legs sprawled across Lincoln’s lap and informs Clarke with an affectionate roll of her eyes that her brother got her the position at the town's information desk because "he wanted to keep an eye on me—he didn’t count on me using the money to move in with Lincoln _and_ buy a motorcycle." Clarke's not really sure what Jasper's job is, but she knows he tries a lot. She also knows he once broke his arm diving into a creek after a burrito and a lot of curse words tend to follow in his wake.

Murphy (also a last name) is sarcastic and slightly crude, responding best to Bellamy's clipped tones, but seems to genuinely help with every assignment. Raven’s technically a mechanic, contracted with the city maintenance office. She still comes by at lunch most days. Marcus mostly keeps to himself, his office door closed more often than not, but Clarke doesn't mind. She understands it.

And then there’s Bellamy. Though their tempers still clash occasionally, he’s gotten under her skin. Clarke’s found herself feeling more connected to him than she has anyone in a long, long time.

She’s trying not to let that scare her.

Clarke doesn’t realize she knows all of this, _cares_ about all of this, until the flu slams into Ark on her third week in town.

Public services had gradually been reinstated, and she and Wick had arranged to extend their visit through the end of the Harvest Festival so they could provide the most accurate audit on the resulting figures. In reality, this means Clarke finds herself attending a lot of meetings with Bellamy, shooting dry comments back and forth, attempting to force everything to fall in line.

When she walks into his office to prepare for that night’s sponsorship pitch to the Chamber of Commerce, she finds it half-empty from people already ill and Bellamy wrapped in an oversized puffy black jacket much too warm for the beginning of October. Murphy appears to be armed with a can of disinfectant in the desk across from him.

She stops in her tracks. “What are you doing? Are you sick?”

“What? No!” Bellamy attempts what is probably supposed to be a scoff. “I’m just cold; it’s just cold in here.”

“Don’t listen to him,” Murphy grouses. “He won’t go home! So I’m stuck trying to fend him off with Lysol and I swear to God if he gets me sick…”

Clarke tunes Murphy out and steps up to Bellamy, brushing damp curls aside to lay her hand across his forehead. His skin is sticky with sweat and, rather than the comforting warmth she remembered him producing (it’s professional, _really_ ), he’s burning under her touch.

“Shit, no; you have the flu. Come on, we’re going to the hospital.” Clarke pulls at his arm to make him move and Bellamy stumbles but stands.

“No, I can’t go to the hospital. I have to get ready for the Chamber of Secrets! Fuck, the Chamber of Commerce. I have to be there.” Bellamy’s slurring his words together slightly and Clarke feels a wave of concern and protectiveness so strong that she has to step back for a second to wonder where it came from. She doesn’t get attached. Hasn’t gotten attached in years.

She’s getting fucking attached.

When she moves, though, Bellamy falls slightly, catching himself on the edge of Murphy’s desk, and she closes back in to help him up. Murphy sprays the surface Bellamy touched immediately.

“Bellamy, I don’t care. You’re sick. You need to see a doctor. You’re going to the hospital, and I’m going to the meeting, and there’s no further discussion to be had about this.” She has to bodily drag him out the door, flagging down a wary Wick when he passes to help carry Bellamy to the car.

While Wick drives, she takes Bellamy’s phone and calls Raven after he tells her, groggily, that Octavia’s already home sick. Somewhere along the way, Bellamy decides that he’s actually hot and keeps trying to pull his shirt off—Clarke pushes it back down over his tease of muscles every time, and she’s pretty sure it qualifies her for sainthood.

When finally they pull up to the emergency room, Raven’s waiting, tapping her foot and looking impatient. Wick immediately perks up.

“What did this idiot do now?” Raven sounds concerned and angry about it, and Clarke has to smile slightly.

“He has the flu, and he tried to come into work anyway. Like, indeed, an idiot.” Clarke hauls Bellamy out of the backseat while Wick goes to stand near Raven.

The other woman eyes Wick up and down, raising an eyebrow slightly at his uneasy appearance. “Why do _you_ look so pale? You’re not sick too, are you?”

“No,” Wick protests. He does look a little pale, glancing at the hospital. “I maintain a heightened physique. Scientists have said the first person to live to reach 150 has already been born, and I’m determined to be that person. Can you imagine how cool robots are going to be in a century? I can’t get sick. For _the robots_ , Reyes!”

Raven scoffs. “I can probably build a robot cooler than most of what you’d see then. You’re never going to live to 150, anyway. I’ve seen you go after a Dropship cheeseburger.”

“Can you build me a robot heart for when the cheeseburgers take me so I can try anyway?”

“Maybe I should start with a brain,” Raven shoots back, and Clarke rolls her eyes at them from where she’s trying to pull Bellamy into the hospital. She really hopes Raven and Wick just fuck and get it over with soon. And, you know, fall in love. She’s a good friend.

“Can I get a little help?” Clarke calls. Bellamy is semi-lucid, muttering about needing to go to the meeting and _save his people_ while trying to pull out the door, and even in his weakened state his weight is a little much for her to struggle under alone. Raven's quickly at his other side, huffing as she pushes him into a wheelchair that suddenly appears behind him and shaking her head as a nurse starts to move him forward. 

Clarke follows them down the hall briefly. 

"I'll take care of the meeting, Bellamy. I'll tell them what you have planned and anyone who wants to can sign up to sponsor. You just...get better." 

He still looks upset and indignant as he's turned into a room, but she figures she'll let the medical professionals handle it.

Six hours later, Clarke’s standing in the corner of the Council of Commerce reception, rereading the outline she printed off of Bellamy’s computer and watching Murphy attempt to schmooze some old white men when Bellamy appears next to her, lurching slightly and asking for money to pay a cab.

“How much is it?” She’s pretty sure he should still be at the hospital. His normally bronze skin looks pallid, he’s swaying slightly on his feet, and when he speaks it still sounds garbled. It tugs at her gut in a way she doesn’t want to think about.

“I don’t know. I tried checking but none of the numbers were numbers.”

She shoots him a look that hopefully says _we are not finished here_ and pays the cab. When she comes back in, Bellamy is standing with his cheek pressed against the wall, muttering under his breath. She keeps catching snippets of “I’m Bellamy Bloke,” and knows he’s as determined to give this speech as she is to get him back to the hospital, but there’s not enough time to bring him back before the presentation. And she knows this needs to go well, _wants_ this to go well, because they need at least 80 sponsors for the Harvest Festival to work. She wants the Harvest Festival to work.

But if he can’t get his name right, he is probably not going to do them any favors.

“Bellamy, I can’t let you do this.” Clarke is pretty sure letting him go onstage would be a disaster.

He peels his face off the wallpaper and peeks at her, surprisingly sober. “Look, the Harvest Festival is my project. It’s my career on the line, my department, and if it doesn’t work I need to know I’ve done everything I can to make it work.”

She swallows, but nods. She gets that. Clarke may not have people she feels protective of in the way he does anymore, but guilt and responsibility she understands. She feels like she understands him a bit better as a result. She sweeps her gaze over him, dark eyes wide and full lips set though his hands shake slightly, and relents.

“Okay. Okay, then let’s do this.” Clarke leads them onstage, nodding at Murphy start his speech. She feels like she should be holding her breath; her fingers twitching and feet poised to leap up at any moment when Bellamy’s introduced, but he squares his shoulders and something in her trusts him. Trusts him to come through, whatever he’s faced with.

She’s not entirely sure where that came from.

But, she’s not disappointed. Bellamy speaks eloquently on community and history and the debt citizens owe each other, and she sits, astounded and awed, looking out over a room of faces smiling and nodding and seemingly unaware of the fact that the man talking couldn’t get his own name right ten minutes ago. It feels like some weird municipal government miracle.

Clarke’s really damn glad she’s here to see it.

When he starts blathering again during the Q&A portion of the event, she swoops in, quietly ordering Murphy to get Bellamy back to the hospital. By the time she’s answered all the questions and seen everyone out, Clarke finds over 100 businesses have signed up for sponsorship. It’s more than a little amazing. _Bellamy_ is more than a little amazing.

She tracks down the GG’s Diner he’s always talking about and brings him soup, pancakes, and the good news in the morning. 

\-----

The weeks that follow serve as a crash course on Ark. Even though Clarke’s been here for over a month now, her interactions have primarily been limited to the people within City Hall.

It turns out that might have been a good thing.

She ends up agreeing to sit in on a town hall meeting when Bellamy asks for her help. They’re recruiting volunteers for the Harvest Festival, and people might have questions, but apparently the meeting is also serving to discuss a time capsule the town’s putting together.

While Bellamy drives to the elementary school hosting them, Clarke watches, notes his fingers tapping and downturned mouth.

“What’s up with you? Are you actually not excited for this? I thought you were weirdly enthusiastic about all parts of your job.”

Bellamy laughs, a short burst that leaves his mouth all at once, but catches her eye with a droll smile. Clarke counts it as a victory.

Not that she’s started counting his smiles as victories.

“Look, I love this town, and most of the people in it are fine. But the ones who come to these meetings tend to be a bit…eccentric.”

The way he accentuated every syllable carefully should have left Clarke prepared.

It didn’t.

There’s a guy shouting loudly into the microphone that a copy of Twilight should be put in the capsule, waving the book wildly over his head like a street corner preacher. (Murphy and Miller, surprisingly, seem to agree with him, while Bellamy just grumbles under his breath about “actual literary classics, for fuck’s sake.”) This is followed by a woman who complains that the sandwich she found in Skaikru Park didn’t have mayonnaise—which is both disgusting and off topic—and a couple who demands a portrait of their cat be included.

In the end, Clarke’s exhausted, but their volunteer roster is full.

“So, what did you think?” Bellamy’s smirking at her, eyes sparking teasingly, and he laughs when she shoots him the darkest look she can muster.

“I used to think the state congressional meetings I’d sit it on when my mother spoke were bad, but that was a whole other level.”

Bellamy drapes his arm around her shoulder, patting her arm lazily as he guides her back to the car, and she freezes mid-step before relaxing, marveling that apparently they’ve became affectionate. Wasn’t he just yelling that she was an ass? He steps away after only a moment, leaving her skin feeling cool.

“The people here can be a little crazy. They’re intense, but it’s because they care. I think they care more in this town than they do anywhere else in the world.”

Clarke hums a little, laughs quietly, but she can’t find it in herself to disagree. She wouldn’t want to do this every week like he does, but her chest still feels warmer, homier, than it did when she arrived.

When they rent out a bar in an attempt to convince the police chief to provide free security for the festival, Clarke’s convinced she stepped back in time. There are fucking _calzones_ on every table and officers keep talking about Alta Vista, and Clarke’s pretty sure the last time she encountered both was 1998. She’s not exactly comfortable around police, but everyone’s laughing and drinking and Bellamy keeps bumping her side, so she figures it’s going pretty well. She’s passing as a competent adult.

Then Miller runs in, speaking quietly but fiercely and Bellamy departs with him, leaving Clarke in charge of asking for security. Her heart’s racing and she’s trying to regulate her breathing because she will _not_ have a panic attack in a room full of calzones. She can do this.

Chief Indra, a dark, intense woman with a scar winding under one eye, is sitting straight-backed at the end of the bar, silently observing the room when Clarke approaches.

“Hi, Chief.” Clarke’s not stuttering; she swears. “Bellamy had to leave…but we had a favor to ask about the Harvest Festival?”

Indra eyes her coolly. “You’ll have your security. Bellamy gets his favors. Give Lieutenant Nyko the information for what you need.”

“I…thank you.” She’s slightly stunned, but not going to complain. “If…if I can ask, why does Bellamy get favors so easily?”

“He has done much for us.” Indra takes a swig of what looks like whiskey, absentmindedly swirling the glass. “And, he dated one of my captains, Echo. He made her happy. I respect that.”

Clarke feels something cold and metallic rise to the back of her throat. It’s tight when she swallows before speaking. “Are they, are they still together?” She knows her feet are shuffling and her hands are twisting around the beer she holds, but she’s not in conscious control of them.

“No. She left several years ago.” Indra looks unimpressed, but nods in Clarke’s direction and she takes that as dismissal. She feels uneven at her response to Indra’s comment about Bellamy dating, her chest still tight and tongue still thick though she know there’s no reason, knows it makes no sense. She’ll be gone in a few more weeks.

She tries to shove the feeling to the back of her mind.

Bellamy grins when he sees her the next morning, and she knows it hasn’t worked.

Instead, she asks if he wants to grab dinner after they work late that day and they spend the evening laughing and swapping stories. He tells her about looking after his sister while their mom worked three jobs, then gaining custody when their mom died before Octavia’s last year in high school. She tells him about her dad and the way he loved art and history and science, but his daughter most of all. They compare opinions on book-to-movie adaptations, and when she laughs at Bellamy’s rant about historical accuracy in films and he huffs but looks at her with something like fondness anyway, she feels her heart twist.

She leaves the diner feeling dazed.

\-----

Two and a half weeks before the Harvest Festival is set to begin, Clarke, Bellamy, and Murphy make the local media circuit to promote it. Except, it turns out, Bellamy is _terrible_ at interviews.

He handles the questions about the festival’s accessibility, attractions, and open hours without issue but freezes up immediately, painfully, as soon as the hosts of WARK’s morning radio show stray from those topics. He apparently has _no_ improvisation skill on air. Clarke would probably laugh at the absurdity of the situation if she wasn’t shooting Murphy a dirty look as he fails entirely at stifling his laughter, swooping in to handle the question instead.

She dealt with a lot of media growing up in the local spotlight. She’s got this.

“Murphy, you’re taking Bellamy on Ark Today.” Clarke immediately begins juggling things around as soon as the broadcast ends. “Just…don’t let him talk if you can help it.”

Bellamy looks slightly offended, but he’s keeping his head down and his hand is practically glued to the back of his neck, so Clarke knows he’s sheepish enough not to fight her on this.

She wonders idly when she started reading his expressions that well.

“I’ll cover Monty and the press conference at City Hall. Now, go!” Clarke shoos the men, Murphy saluting lazily and dragging a halfheartedly glaring Bellamy behind him. She sighs and gets back to work.

“So, what are you most excited for at the Harvest Festival?” Monty asks. It’s three hours after the radio disaster and Clarke’s already finished the press conference. She can finally feel the tension in her shoulders ebbing. They’re through the detailed questions, the people vehemently demanding to know how much the fest is costing them despite her detailed and adamant insistence that everything not covered by the cost of tickets is already paid for by local taxes, and she’s wrapping up the Ark Chronicle interview. It’s _Monty_. She’s got this.

“Really, I’m just looking forward to everyone getting to see what we’ve got for them. Bellamy’s worked so hard on everything. I’ve been all over the state but I’ve never seen someone, seen a town, with so much passion and commitment.” Her voice is laced with a surge of fondness, pride; that sweeps down to her toes.

Monty tilts his head at her and smiles, slyer than Clarke’s used to seeing him.

“What exactly _is_ the nature of your relationship with Bellamy?”

“It’s strictly professional. We’re just friends.” She schools her face into the look of poised relaxation perfected along her mother’s campaign trail. Monty just raises his eyebrows.

“So are you colleagues, or are you friends?”

Clarke wants to curse. The little adorable shit.

“We’re colleagues, with benefits.” Fuck. “The benefit of also being friends. Dammit, you know what I’m trying to say. Are we done, Monty?”

He grins widely but nods, and she motions for him to go lounge at Miller’s desk, chewing her lip mindlessly.

_What the hell was that, Griffin?_

She knows she likes Bellamy, is fond of him, but she’s tried to avoid seeing the potential for anything beyond their friendship. Tried to avoid reading into his casual touches. She’s _leaving_.

Apparently, she’s also failing.

Clarke’s so caught up in her own head at the stumble that she doesn’t hear about the apparent disaster that was Bellamy Blake on Ark Today until after they’re back in the office, Murphy cackling and waving a disc over his head.

“Guys, you have to see this. Blake’s a WRECK!” Murphy motions everyone to his desk where he’s slipping the DVD into its drive, playing the video that was apparently the highlight of his goddamn life.

Clarke wanders over from the conference room at a loud shout of laughter. She’s only half paying attention, snorting when she catches an occasional absurd comment or stutter through Bellamy’s grumbling, until she gets prodded by a Blake on either side. They nod towards the screen in synchrony where video-Bellamy is shouting, “Who HASN’T had gay thoughts?!?”

Octavia fucking loses it.

Clarke elbows Bellamy, smiling and facetious. “Don’t feel bad. I’ve definitely had gay thoughts. Granted, I’m bisexual, but it’s fine. This is _great_ publicity.”

He rolls his eyes at her and huffs, but is smiling when he says, “Wait, wait, this is the best part.”

Clarke watches him instead of the video: pointing and laughing with everyone crammed into this tiny little office space around an old computer, shirt sleeves rolled up above his lithe forearms, freckles creased where the skin around his eyes crinkle. When he turns and meets her gaze with his face in a wide grin, she feels something in her stomach stutter and spiral down, down, down.

\-----

Clarke’s wrapped up in a motel duvet with her laptop balanced in front of her when a series of knocks sound from her door.

“Clarke! Open up!”

She pauses Netflix, drops the blanket from around her shoulders, and shuffles to the door’s peep hole. Bellamy’s in Indianapolis with Marcus and Wick, collecting some award for the Parks department, and he’s the only one that ever comes by. Apparently his brainstorming doesn’t wait for normal business hours, especially now that they’re only two weeks out from the Harvest Fest, but he usually brings food and ends up propped up by the coffee table next to her, talking animatedly, so she lets it slide.

This time, she’s faced with his sister. Octavia’s standing in front of her when the door opens, dark hair and bright eyes shining, bouncing on the tips of her toes before bounding past Clarke into the room.

“Come on; get dressed! You’re coming out with us.” Octavia is grinning and tugging on Clarke’s hand, thrusting a blouse that had been draped across a chair at her. “Just put that on with your jeans; it’ll look great. Come on, come on!”

Clarke allows herself to be pushed into the bathroom and does as she’s told, feeling like she’s been caught in a whirlwind. She and Octavia have talked amicably the handful of times they’ve been at events together and Clarke likes the younger woman, but they’ve never actively sought out each other’s company before.

“Okay, okay, I’m dressed.” Clarke steps back into the bedroom, tossing her pajamas aside before raising an eyebrow at its current occupant. “Now, can you tell me what’s going on? What do you mean I’m going out with you?”

“I _mean_ we’re all going to the Foxhole—Lincoln, Raven, Miller, the whole gang—and you’re coming with us! Or, at least, I hope you are.” Octavia winces slightly, as if realizing for the first time that her determination hadn’t left much room for conversation. Clarke can’t help a small smirk at that and nods. When they get to the car, Lincoln’s waiting behind the wheel, and he nods at Clarke when she slides into the backseat, a quiet smile on his face, while Octavia chirps that they’re ready to go.

Clarke chews her lip and watches the lights flick by as they drive through town for a while. Finally, as they near the bar-passing-for-a-club, she has to ask.

“Why bring me out tonight?” She hurries to continue. “I mean, I’ve been here almost two months and haven’t been ambushed before.”

Octavia looks back at her, somehow wry and amused all at once, and meets her eye carefully before saying, “Because of Bell.”

“Wait, Bellamy? What does he have to do with this?”

“He asked me to look out for you. He knows you don’t have a lot of friends here, and he was worried you’d stay locked up in your room the entire weekend they were gone.”

Clarke furrows her brow slightly, cognizant of Octavia’s eyes still on her. “Why would he do that, though? Not too long ago he was cursing me and implying I enjoy killing people with machetes.”

Octavia rolls her eyes and huffs slightly. “Because, it’s what he does. He takes care of the people he likes. And he’s always liked you, Clarke. Even when he thought he hated you.”

Clarke flushes, hot and full, burning across her body in a way sure to be visible even in the darkened car.

“He likes me?”

She feels like a middle schooler with a crush.

Octavia just grins and turns around, clapping excitedly when they pull into the Foxhole Lounge parking lot. Clarke still feels flustered but stumbles into the club after them. She drinks and chats, dances with Monty next to Lincoln and Octavia while Miller shakes his head at them, watches with bemusement as Murphy flits between women at the bar. At some point, she texts Bellamy a picture of Octavia forcing Jasper to give her a piggy back ride with the caption _I’m holding you responsible for all trauma accrued tonight_. He sends back a thumbs up emoji.

By the time Raven sidles up to where she’s resting at the bar, watching Miller twirl Monty around the floor with surprising ease, Clarke’s had a few beers and a shot of something called Foxjuice and has mostly succeeded in pushing her earlier conversation with Octavia from her mind. Raven flags down the bartender for a shot, giving Clarke a droll grin before downing it.

“This group likes you, you know.” Raven’s eyes are concentrated on the crowd, but she’s standing close, body language focused on Clarke in a way that makes this feel like more than a casual comment.

“I like them, too.” Clarke smiles, catching sight of Octavia leaning against Lincoln and laughing, the hulking man looking down with open affection.

“Bellamy likes you, as well. In a little bit more than the friendly way.” Raven locks eyes with her. “And I get the sense you feel the same.”

Clarke can’t do anything more than stammer and blush. She’s usually more competent, _really_ , but there’s something about this damn place that keeps throwing her off. Plus, she’s definitely tipsy.

“I’m just saying,” Raven continues, unexpectedly gentle, “you should go for it. You both deserve it. I get the sense that you’ve survived a lot, and he has too, but life should be about more than just surviving.”

Clarke sighs and runs her hand over her face. There’s probably no point in denying it anymore. She hasn’t been convincing herself for a while. But…

“It’s not that simple. I’m leaving town as soon as the Harvest Festival’s over, and we have to work together on that. It’s not something I can risk.”

Raven looks unimpressed.

“Besides, I wouldn’t even know what to _say_.”

“You should ask him about his penis,” Raven deadpans, then grins salaciously, knocking Clarke’s shoulder with hers. “I mean, I’d tell you about it, but that would defeat the purpose.”

“Is that what you did with Wick?”

Raven fucking cackles until Clarke can’t help but join in.

Eventually they drag each other onto the dancefloor where their friends have gathered, and as Clarke looks around the group, talking and jumping aimlessly, she’s surprised to find herself feeling like she somehow belongs there. In some way, she’s been fit into it all: this little hidden town; this little hidden department, buried so far down the civic structures outline that hangs over her desk that she has to squint to see it; with all these people who’ve refused to let her hide.

It’s strange to have someplace that knows her after years of constant travel. But it’s also really nice. 

That doesn’t stop her from freaking out, though. Which is probably why Monday morning happens the way it does.

Bellamy stops by the office, a small file folder tucked under his arm.

“Hey—Wick wanted me to bring by the receipts from this weekend?”

“Oh, he’s out, but I can take them.” Clarke crosses over and takes the file from him, laying it atop Wick’s desk. “Did you have a good trip?”

“Yeah, it all went well. Aside from Kane having a minor freak out over a steakhouse closing down, it was pretty uneventful.” He leans his shoulder against the wall and grins down at her, cheeks dimpling and curls falling into his eyes in a way that she has to actively resist brushing away. His hair’s gotten longer in the time she’s been here. She likes it. “I heard you had a pretty good time, too?”

“It was nice. Thank you,” she says quietly, “for looking out for me.”

“Anytime, Clarke. Really.”

His face is softer now, crinkled eyes and small smile laced with fondness and something else Clarke can’t quite place. Her mind flashes briefly to what Octavia said this weekend, what Raven said after that.

Before she can think, she’s on her toes, pressing their mouths together gently. His lips are chapped but soft and he goes completely still for one brief moment before he returns her pressure slightly, his hand grazing down her arm to tangle their fingers together. He squeezes lightly, and it’s just enough to make Clarke snap out of it.

“Shit.” She takes a small step back, their fingers still laced.

“Clarke—“

“No, fuck, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have done that.” Bellamy’s features flip back to that implacable expression he wore when they first met, when he practically hated her, and she stutters to explain. “I just, I mean…I’m leaving town soon. And the Harvest Festival is so important to you, so important to this town, and we have to work together on that and I’d hate if I was the thing that screwed that up and I just…shit.”

She runs both her hands over her face, then forces herself to meet Bellamy’s gaze. If he’s having even a fraction of the rampaging emotions she is, it doesn’t show.

Instead, he just nods and steps casually back towards the door, hands now tucked into his pockets. “Okay. I’ll see you at the meeting with the volunteer coordinators this afternoon, right?” His lips tilt crookedly at he starts to turn through the doorway.

“Yeah. Um, yeah, of course,” Clarke stammers and then he’s gone.

She deflates, sinking into a chair and groaning as she lays her head atop the table. Her mind keeps flashing back to that unfazed look on Bellamy’s face and she consciously works on keeping her breathing even. They’re okay, right? He seemed okay.

He doesn’t hate her.

He doesn’t hate her.

He doesn’t hate her.

She repeats it until she believes.

\-----

Suddenly, it's four days before the Harvest Festival and Clarke doesn't have time to think about her definitively unprofessional feelings for Bellamy. He gathers everyone in the Parks office Monday morning, clipboard in hand. This late in the game, their schedule is crazy, but so far everything is going according to plan. Better, even. 

"Because you've all been working so hard," Bellamy says after they've briefed on the day, "I have a surprise." 

He grins and rocks on his heels, practically vibrating with excitement for whatever's coming up next.

"Ladies and gentlemen…we have the magnanimous, illustrious, world famous...Li'l Lexa!" 

At his wave, a small tan horse with a bright mark on its forehead is lead into the office by a beaming Jasper. Clarke sees Miller gasp and jump up before everyone starts blathering animatedly and making their way towards the animal. Marcus is _giggling_. Octavia's squealing can be heard above it all. 

"Oh, cute." Clarke makes her way towards the horse. "But what's with the pony?"

Murphy whirls on her wearing a glare that takes her aback. She does _not_ need Murphy strangling her today. 

"She's not a pony; she's a _miniature horse!_ " 

"And she's amazing," Lincoln pipes up while Octavia nods seriously. 

Clarke edges towards Bellamy, warily skirting everyone clustered around the horse taking pictures. Apparently not understanding Li’l Lexa could be her undoing.

Bellamy leans into her, obviously pleased by the group’s delight, nodding towards where the horse is taking a fucking shit on the office floor. Everyone still looks giddy.

“Li’l Lexa made her debut at the last Harvest Festival. She was an instant phenomenon—that week, she was the third most photographed animal in America. She’s 25 now, and a disaster health-wise, but I still got her owners to agree to have her appear on the fairgrounds.”

Clarke would be dumbfounded by the ease with which he recites local history if she wasn’t so amused by it. “Okay, that’s great. But I still don’t understand.”

“Get out,” he deadpans. His face is blank, but his eyes are shining, so she laughs and calls that she’ll be in her office if needed.

Bellamy hasn’t been acting strangely since she kissed him—he’s still casual and comfortable, knocking shoulders and high-fiving their accomplishments, smiling at her as he always would. He’s normal. Totally unfazed. So Clarke pretends she is, too.

She still doesn’t get the horse, though.

When she gets back to the space she and Wick are still sharing, he’s out at his own meeting. She works on the final paperwork for their time in Ark, emails the volunteer coordinators and police department to confirm respective shifts again, and fields a press call before he comes back.

He finally does, meandering into the office before nodding at Clarke and sitting silently. 

It's really, really weird. 

"Okay, what's going on?" Clarke takes a seat across from him, wondering what she needs to be prepared for. The last time he was this quiet, he'd been dumped, gotten his arm stuck in an elevator, and learned of NASA budget cuts all in the same day. Wick looks up at her, stoic.

“We’ve gotten our new assignment from state.”

Clarke knew this was coming, but she still feels her stomach drop.

“And,” Wick continues, now overtly casual, “we also got a few job offers here. Including ones from Ark and Woodlawn’s City Halls. I wouldn’t be opposed to sticking around this old building.” He levels a stare at her, unusually stern. “But we’re partners. I won’t make a decision without you.”

Clarke can feel her pulse racing, mind tumbling, stomach churning sharply at the idea of staying in this place for a while. Wick gives her more information--the jobs at City Hall are good, decent pay, including the option of overseeing Ark long term--but her mind’s only half present.

She thinks of all the distance she's put between herself and others over her lifetime; the ways she pushed people out of her life after her dad died, and even more so when her best friend Wells was shot not even a year later in someone’s attempt to send a message to his Chief of Police father. She thinks of her past relationships, girlfriends and boyfriends that fizzled out under weekend jaunts to Indianapolis or visits to whatever hamlet she happened to be stationed in that week, and then of Bellamy. Suddenly, clearly, _she wants this_. She wants it just because she does, just because it makes her happy. She takes a deep breath.

"Yeah. Let’s take the jobs. Let's stay," she tells Wick. "We've got some things to see through here."

Wick's eyes spark like he knows what she's alluding to (and when she pictures him and Raven, she knows he does), and he nods. They'll stay. They're staying.

They're seeing things through.

\-----

With everything going on, Clarke doesn’t mention the job news to Bellamy. The day before the festival begins, they’re walking side by side through the fairgrounds, double checking every booth, maintenance certificate, and ear of corn. The Harvest Festival actually encompasses events all across town, but the carnival is what requires most of their manpower and attention. It’s all going well. Everything’s running on schedule and passing inspections, staffed to efficiency.

Then Li’l Lexa escapes and it all goes to hell.

Apparently, during his lessons on local history Bellamy failed to mention that the fairgrounds are actually the site of Sky Hill Battle, an event in which Ark settlers decimated hundreds of local Native Americans.

“Their representative wasn’t happy with the shooting gallery being placed here,” Bellamy explains, running a hand through his hair. “She decided to curse the fest, and somehow the damn media got ahold of it when Li’l Lexa disappeared.”

Clarke sends Octavia and Lincoln up on the ferris wheel to look for the horse, directing Miller and Monty, off duty from the newspaper, to check the booths and food stalls. Murphy’s trying to wrangle the television crews that have arrived at the whiff of controversy, which she thinks is probably a terrible idea, considering the way he’s glowering.

Somewhere in the middle of trying to answer the questions being shouted at her, the power shuts off.

Bellamy storms past from the direction of the generator shortly after, eyes dark and stormy, shouting, “Freedom of the press is the fucking worst!” She takes that to mean the outage was caused by the news crews circling them.

“Bellamy, breathe. Just handle searching for Lexa and everything here. Can we get another generator?”

“The only other place in town with one that size is the reservation casino.” He still looks like he wants to make somebody suffer, but he’s calming down.

“Okay.” Clarke squares her shoulder. “Then I’ll take care of it.”

He shoots her a small, grateful smile, and she heads towards the outer limits of town. They have 15 hours until opening.

Apparently Anya, the strikingly unimpressed and angular-faced woman who runs the casino, is the same person who cursed the Harvest Festival in the first place. And who went to the media with it. Stations are showing fucking _animated reenactments_ of the whole thing.

It feels like she’s extracting her own teeth without novocaine, but eventually Clarke gets Anya to agree to truck their generator to the fairgrounds for the night in exchange for a larger history exhibit and relocating the shooting gallery.

When she asks Anya about the curse, the other woman shrugs and says, “White people are terrified of curses.” Clarke can’t help but crack at that and as she’s turning to leave, a slow grin works its way through her.

“I have an idea.”

Anya agrees purely for the sake of theatrics, waving something flaming in front of the cameras still clustered around the carnival booths, saying what Clarke’s pretty sure translates to “you’re all idiots.” But it works. The TV crews leave, Bellamy deflates, and Octavia and Lincoln detangle themselves enough when the lights come back on to spot both Li’l Lexa and Jasper wandering at opposite ends of the corn maze.

Eventually, they all go home.

The carnival is scheduled to open at 10AM the next day, so Clarke shows up two hours early to help Bellamy oversee all the work placements and final details. There’s a ribbon cutting ceremony arranged to mark the return of the Harvest Festival, and Clarke takes one last round of the grounds before making her way to where Bellamy’s prepared it.

He’s standing on a small dais in front of a large red ribbon, looking out over the crowd and holding a pair of oversized scissors. Clarke only gets distracted by how his arms look carrying them for a second. She smiles when their eyes meet, and he grins and motions his head in the direction of the platform while camera shutters sound.

“Is everything okay?” She sidles up to the edge of the tiny stage, wondering if something’s gone wrong.

“Get up here, Clarke.” Her eyes widen and he’s laughing.

“What? No, Bellamy, this is your project! You should do it.”

“This is as much yours as it is mine,” he says, softer. “Come on. We’re doing this together.”

Clarke smiles, her heart squeezing and pulse racing, and lets him help her up and wrap his hand around hers on the scissors. She nods. “Together.”

They cut the ribbon and cameras click and the Harvest Festival is open.

She finds Bellamy again once things settle down, shaking hands with a pair of official looking men in suits and seeming dazed.

“Did I interrupt something?” she asks, nodding at the retreating backs.

He shakes himself slightly. “What? Oh, no. It’s fine. You’re fine.” He still looks slightly awed, but now it’s directed at her. She can live with that.

They make an easy lap of the fairgrounds, smiling and waving at carnival goers. By the time they’ve rounded the end of the merchant stalls, Bellamy’s walking by her side, hands tucked into his pockets, bumping their arms together and smiling easily. It makes her stomach flutter.

“You should have some fun. You deserve it.”

She laughs and slows to a stop, tilting her head up so she can look at him in the close proximity. “So do you, you know.”

Clarke watches his eyes flicker over her face with a kind of tenderness that leaves her chest feeling a breath away from bursting.

“I’m staying in town,” she blurts, suddenly unsure why she didn’t tell him earlier.

“You’re…?” Bellamy’s eyes are wide, but he’s smiling, lips poised on the edge of excitement.

“I’m staying. We got job offers, here, in Ark. Figured we should see some things through.” Her heart’s beating faster and there’s a lump in her throat she has to swallow dryly to get past before she can continue. “Besides, turns out this town’s not so bad after all. It’s…kind, and passionate, and definitely a bit nerdy, and surprisingly attractive. You know, for a town.”

He’s grinning widely now, face so bright she can hardly stand it, with just the tiniest teasing glint to his eyes that makes her think he understands what she’s really saying, but she has to be sure. Her voice shakes a little anyway.

“It’s not just me, is it?”

“No,” he says, soft and low and gravelly in a way that makes her spine tingle. He takes a step closer, hands floating up to rest on her cheeks. “It’s not just you.”

She moves, or he moves, or maybe they move together, and they’re kissing; his hand cradling her head, thumb gently brushing her jaw, and it's a slow, sweet, promising sort of kiss, riding on a current of potential energy.

Clarke's too distracted by the way his lips slide to tell exactly what he tastes like under the sugar of cotton candy—sweat and pheromones and something human and pulsing. But she decides she likes it, so she lets her mouth part under his and leans in.

Suddenly they're a tangle of hands and tongues and rolling hips, without boundaries, without separation, and Clarke's pretty sure she hasn't felt this good in a while, pretty sure she hasn't _wanted_ this much maybe ever. Bellamy backs her up against one of the corrugated plastic walls lining the back of the last row of booths and she lets him, uses the opportunity to clip his lip with her teeth, soothe it over with her tongue. She revels in the deep noises it draws out of him, how his body presses infinitesimally closer to hers, how his arm fucking cages her in when she gasps his name. His hand is pressing against her lower back and she’s prepared jump, wrap her legs around his waist, do whatever it takes to keep him this close to her forever.

Then she hears the sound of someone stumbling back and opens her eyes to find Wick staring at them, eyebrows raised and grinning cheekily.

“Shit. Um, hi, Wick.” Clarke raises her hand at him slightly, cheeks burning. Bellamy’s arms are still wrapped around her back but she doesn’t pull away. She’d been so busy denying and freaking out over her feelings for Bellamy that she hadn’t paused to consider what might happen if something actually came of them. Wick is technically her boss, even if they both forget it most of the time, and she’s suddenly acutely aware that making out with, _dating_ Bellamy probably counts as unprofessional behavior.

But she breathes a little easier when Wick just shakes his head, walking around them carefully and calling out with a lilt to his voice, “Don’t mind me! Carry on. And use protection, kids!”

Clarke groans, tucking her face into Bellamy’s chest. He laughs against her head, kissing her hair as he moves it back, then tugs at her hand.

“Come on. Let’s go get lost in the corn maze.”

She grins and leads the way.

\-----

Twelve days later, they watch teams of people and machinery dismantle the bones of the Harvest Festival. She’s spent half of the nights since its opening at Bellamy’s house; tucked away on his couch in the center of town with a mound of GG’s pancakes in front of them, piled with more whipped cream than she thinks is strictly advisable, until they inevitably end up wrapped around each other, toes curled and muscles quaking, and she wakes in the morning to their limbs interlocked in Bellamy’s bed.

She likes it, the way they feel together. She likes it more than she thinks she probably should; in a simple, pure way that makes her heart feel full and light and leaves her the tiniest bit breathless when she thinks about it too much. Leaves her with the feeling that maybe this was inevitable.

She’s trying not to overthink it and instead just let it be. 

So far, she's succeeding.

"Looks like this is the end, huh?" Clarke slides in to stand next to Bellamy, watching as a crane lifts apart a ridiculous neon candy themed tilt-a-whirl. In response, he reaches over and grasps her hand, linking their fingers together easily.

Clarke catches his eye and beams before looking forward, letting the wind and the gentle press of his thumb smoothing her skin wash over her as she looks out on the horizon.

She rather likes the way things are set to begin.

**Author's Note:**

> I currently have one additional (shorter) story planned for this verse, so that--fingers crossed--should be out relatively soon.  
> I hope you enjoyed this! I'm on tumblr [here](http://apanoplyofsong.tumblr.com/).
> 
> A list of which roles characters are loosely ( _loosely_ ) fit into:
> 
> Clarke as Ben Wyatt  
> Bellamy as Leslie Knope  
> Wick as Chris Traeger  
> Raven as Ann Perkins  
> Lincoln as April Ludgate  
> Octavia as Andy Dwyer  
> Murphy as Tom Haverford (I personally found this hilarious to imagine on rewatches)  
> Miller as Donna Meagle  
> Monty as Shauna Malwae-Tweep  
> Kane as Ron Swanson  
> Jasper as Jerry Gergich  
> (Also: a note that Dichen Lachman, who plays Anya, is not Native American, but as her heritage is never addressed in the show, I'm operating under the understanding that you do not have to have 100% native blood to be active in the community. Hopefully that's okay.)


End file.
